Good morning
I grew up in homogeneous, very religious community – a town of 3,000 ppl with no fewer than 10 churches – all of the SAME denomination. I was taught that every word of the bible was fact and that your salvation hinged on belief in Jesus Christ. This was not a good context in which to have a questioning nature – which I had in abundance, the upshot of which is that I got kicked out of Sunday School when I was 12. So, not surprisingly, when I left that community for university I was happy to have the freedom to step away. Returning to my hometown for Thanksgiving that year I was buttonholed by a prying relative who grilled me on what questionable choices I might now be making in ‘the big city’. Then he asked me point blank, ‘what church are you attending now?’ I told him that I spent most Sunday mornings at St. Mattress Episco-pillow. I thought the silence that followed meant he had understood my cheeky ‘back off’ remark, but then he said: “well, I guess a Catholic church is better than no church”.
But when I moved to Yellowknife in my mid 20’s and kind of stumbled into the United Church there, I gratefully learned this: that just because something didn’t really happen doesn’t mean it isn’t true. That we don’t expect the bible to tell a factual history – we come to the bible to put our experiences in conversation with ancient stories. What conversation arises when we walk with Luke chapter 24?
The Road to Emmaus story is a special one, for me. Thirty-seven years ago, almost to this very day, I sat in the congregation of Yellowknife United Church – and on that day the speaker behind the lectern was the very person now sitting three rows in front of me – and I thank you, Mike Bell, for how you opened up that story all those years ago. I can still hear your confident and slightly gravelly voice introducing us to “Cleophas and what’s his name” - his companion who is, interestingly, not named. Perhaps Luke was leaving a space – as in, ‘insert your name here’ - so that you can imagine yourself front row in the scenes that he carefully creates. The story is known as The Road to Emmaus – but it might more accurately be called The Road out of Jerusalem. Jerusalem – the symbolic centre of Jesus’ ministry where, when this story takes place, he had been crucified just two days before. Though we have never before heard of Cleophas and companion, the context makes clear that they are very close to the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples. Or, at least they were. They events of the last days have completely disoriented them – they are grieving and bitterly disappointed. Their hopes - that Jesus would lead a throwing off of Roman oppression - have been dashed. Rudderless, they become aware of their rising fear. Remaining in Jerusalem is a risk – who knows if the blood-sport Romans will decide to round up Jesus’ followers to ensure the uprising that he started is quelled for good. And so? Cleophas and what’s his name are gettin’ out of Dodge. They are leaving the community of fellow-followers – as it seems both dangerous and pointless to stay.
As they walk on the road a stranger falls in step beside them. As travelers do, they begin a conversation about the recent events - and by turns the stranger challenges them, teaches them, and also comforts them… when they finally reach Emmaus, light is falling and it is clear that the stranger means to continue on – but they urge him to join them and take supper and rest. It is, actually, a series of beautiful exchanges: the back and forth of their conversation on the walk, an invitation extended – accepted – the supper laid, their guest taking the bread – blessing it. It is broken and offered… And then - the story tells us – their eyes were opened - it is not a stranger at the table - it is Jesus – but oh! - just as suddenly as he had appeared – he vanishes.
What you broke open and offered to me almost 40 years ago Mike, was that in the communion created among them, especially in breaking bread together – Christ was re-membered – made whole in their midst – and in having made him whole, the gift is given back – they are restored to wholeness. The encounter changes them. (cue painting: Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus, 1601)
This work by Renaissance painter Caravaggio depicts the surprise of the Emmaus travelers at the very moment they SEE that it is Jesus at the table – The artist has included several interesting details – for example, the server’s shadow creates a halo behind Jesus’ head and the shadow the fruit casts on the tablecloth is shaped like a fish. But what most intrigues me is this: look at the person on the far right - we don’t know for sure who it is, but let’s say it is Cleophas – how the surprise is communicated in his arms. I think that Caravaggio is suggesting that this moment captures more than just surprise. There is a visual echo in way the arms are extended – a mirroring of what love looked like only two days before when Jesus was suspended on a cross. The love has now been transfigured onto this person with outstretched arms – but this time not a posture of death – but of someone lifted into renewed life - renewed and reoriented. In this presence – this light –– they come to see themselves differently – I think of the words Karen offered at the Good Friday service: “Jesus’ very presence draws out our highest self – draws forth that which is most aligned with God’s purpose.” Cleophas and companion have been transformed; raised. Immediately they set out – hurrying down the road TO Jerusalem – to join the others – returning to, recreating the community that will further re-member the body of Christ.
What makes up the body of Christ? It would be natural that we think of that body in human terms – humanity, if you will. But physician and poet William Carlos Williams, draws a picture that is much wider. In a poem he wrote during the Depression, entitled The Host – a word that the Christian world will recognize as the name for the bread served in the sacrament of communion – he describes a scene at a railway diner where several people who identify in church roles – two Irish nuns, a white-haired Anglican, and an African American evangelist – are served meals by a tired waitress. Williams’ poem is almost an anti-Emmaus scene – people who should be united by love of and service to God, sit apart – certainly well apart from the black evangelist who at that time would have not been permitted near the ‘white only’ tables. It’s almost as though the poet is sadly shaking his head as he watches these people who should recognize at least their shared humanity in that they need food to live, or a step up from that – see the common bond of their hunger for spiritual meaning. And you can almost imagine him sweeping his arm to point to a yet higher vision of community; he writes:
there is nothing to eat – seek it where you will – but the body of the Lord. The blessed plants and the sea yield it to the imagination in tact.
He’s saying: no matter where you look, what you eat, you cannot help but see it and be a part of it – the fields and forests, oceans and streams reveal that all creation is the body of the Lord; a holy community. He invites the idea to take hold in your imagination – how vast is this community? From the snailfish that glides like a ribbon 8,000 meters deep in the Marianas Trench to a flock of cranes, a thousand strong, that soar 3,000 meters high – to forests, grasslands, tundra, and all creatures and ecosystems in between … Take, eat, sow, cultivate, play upon, swim within ... it is all a sacred and sanctifying interdependence.
Another gifted writer, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, points to this same truth using an allusion to the story of Moses before the burning bush - and tells us that it wasn’t a one-off miracle. She writes:
Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes, the rest sit round it and pick blackberries.
In our own valley these days we are witnessing common bushes afire with God. Dogwood, azaleas, camellias, lilac, potentilla... It is a wonder to behold and I think we have all known a time when we receive the gift of a deeper glimpse of truth - when a veil seems to be lifted and we know we are in the presence of the holy.
But in the days that we live in, never far away from our delight there is also a shadow - a sense of lurking threat. Like Damocles who - while enjoying a banquet – looks up and sees directly above him a sword suspended by a mere horsehair, we are ever aware that our fragile planet is in danger. And does our alarm move us to action? Well, our societal response to this threat is somewhat puzzling. Those of you who were at the second Ted Talk recently hosted by Joan Gilles and SAGE committee will remember climate scientist Katharine Heyhoe citing that although well over 70% of ppl in North America believe that climate change is real and affecting us now, two-thirds of those ppl said they never discuss it. When asked why they don’t talk about it a common response is: “it’s so upsetting I don’t want to think about it”.
What can help us shake our mute paralysis, and move forward, even in the presence of our fear? To this, I offer something that I learned from a nine year old – my own daughter. The year she was in 3rd grade Johanna was plagued with nightmares that made her afraid to go to bed. We talked about strategies I gleaned from various resources but this didn’t help her. Then, knowing that she had a heart that responded to poetry, I reached for something that had given comfort to countless ppl over the ages – the 23rd Psalm. I simply read it to her at bedtime and after I finished she said, read it again. From that night onward she read it to herself; she didn’t really want to talk about it, but she told me it was helping. Fast forward a few months later when she is at a two-week summer camp for the first time and I was also there on program staff. A cabin mate of hers, Denae, whom Joey had come to really like was struggling with homesickness. Each day for Denae was worse and Johanna was worried for her. I said to her, “well, Psalm 23 helped you with nightmares – do you think it could help Denae too?” She fetched her bible, found Denae and the three of us went to sit on Intermediate rock. Johanna read the Psalm aloud and then went back to the lines: ‘you prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies’ – “see, Denae” she said –The enemies are still there but God is closer.
Zen master Thich Nat Hanh, said that in order to help the earth we first need to “hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying”. The structure of Psalm 23 also models the way that we can hold space for our fears and the planet’s pain with compassion. We begin with gratitude (‘the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want’) – we give thanks that our basic needs are met. And we recall peace-filled places – green pastures and still waters - where we have felt connected to and secure in the gifts of the land. Embedded within the larger web of life, we can use the gift of our breath like a prayer – taking in what feels raw and hard one breath at a time, and then releasing it. The gifts of the earth move us toward wholeness and with this renewal – even in incremental stages – we are drawn toward the work of re-creation in the world.
It makes me wonder about Barrett Browning’s words – “but only he who sees”…what makes the difference between seeing and not seeing – whether we take off our shoes, or merely pluck blackberries; whether the tasks of earth stewardship feel like a burden or a gift we have been given and are, therefore, returning? I am coming to wonder if the key is in the light - “the light of the world”. I confess that I have always found that phrase, attributed to Jesus, a bit troubling. Again it’s the baggage of my early years when phrases like “I am the light of the world”, “I am the way, the truth…no one comes to the Father but by me” – To me, it made Christianity a journey for ticketed passengers only; ‘form a line - we need to see that all your beliefs are in order…’
But what if it isn’t this at all – what if it isn’t ‘I am the light, look at me’, but rather, ‘look out there – waaay out – all the beauty - all the pain – don’t turn away from what’s hard; it’s okay, in this light you can see that you’re not alone”. What if Jesus is not what we look at, but what we see by; I am the light that lets you see all that is holy.
Take off your shoes.